


What is Written

by mimssio



Category: Booth at the End
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimssio/pseuds/mimssio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People visit The Man in the booth at the end of a diner because they hear he makes things happen. They are not entirely correct, but neither are they wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is Written

**Author's Note:**

  * For [byzantienne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantienne/gifts).



> This is my first Yuletide fic. Please leave constructive criticism in the comments. I believe it can stand alone, but I do plan on continuing it. I hope you all have or have had a lovely holiday season.

**What is written**

For Lindensphinx

By Her Yuletide Author  
  
A coal-dark young man flung himself carelessly into the booth, across the table from a mysterious man. His legs were splayed open, with only his left leg actually under the table. His right foot was planted in the aisle between the booths and the red vinyl-covered swiveling stools at the counter. He waited for a waitress to arrive, then turned to her and ordered chocolate chip pancakes.  
  
 **Sean**  
  
The man sitting across from him looked at Sean with a question on his face. Sean seemed to respond to this, assuring him, “Yeah, I started.”  
  
With this, the white-haired man with pale blue eyes pulled out a leather-bound book and a pen. “How’d it go?”  
  
“Well,” Sean replied slowly, “I guess it was okay. Like, I didn’t get caught or nothin’.” He adjusted his cap and shrugged his jacket a little closer together.  
  
The man tapped his pen against the battered book and turned his gaze on Sean. “The details.” He tilted his head. “If you will.”  
  
There was a pause in their conversation as the aproned waitress reappeared with Sean’s plate of chocolate chip pancakes. Sean accepted the plate with a, “Thanks,” of acknowledgement.   
  
He scooted into the booth and, elbows resting on the slightly sticky boomerang laminate of the table, dug into his stack of diner pancakes.  
  
“I gotta say,” Sean began, “I wasn’t expecting it to be so... easy.”  
  
“Easy? How?” inquired the man sitting across from him.  
  
“I mean, I got nervous a couple of times, but I just reminded myself it’s for my sister. I want my baby sister to get better, this is what I’ve got to do. I got calm real quick when I just told myself that.” Sean’s teeth snatched a bite of chocolate-rich pancake from the tines of his fork.  
  
“Interesting,” the man nodded.

* * *

  
A girl, perhaps a young woman but without the self-assuredness to truly be so, approached the last booth in a diner that still smelled faintly of bacon grease from the morning’s customers. The blonde cautiously peered at the man already seated in the bench facing the door. “I hear the pastrami sandwich here is really good,” she ventured hesitantly.  
  
“Oh?” The seated man tipped his face towards her politely. “Why don’t you have a seat?”  
  
 **Caroline**  
  
“So how does this work?” Caroline asked.  
  
“You tell me what you want, I give you a task, you complete the task, you get what you want. So tell me,” the man queried with a soft grunt as he shifted in his seat and brought forth the battered notebook once more, “what is it you want?”  
  
Caroline twirled the ponytail that fell over her shoulder with two fingers and glanced down at the table before responding, “I just want our team to win, okay?”  
  
The man twisted his face to the window, but kept his eyes on Caroline, eyebrows coming together in an inquiring gaze. “Can you be more specific?”  
  
“Our football team. There’s a championship. I want our team to win,” Caroline explained.  
  
“Why?” asked the man.  
  
Caroline looked across the table, but couldn’t quite meet the man’s eyes. “Because if we win, the season goes on longer, and the cheerleaders get more attention.”  
  
“Ah. And you, of course, are one of the cheerleaders,” the man stated.  
  
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Dude, don’t act like you couldn’t tell that by looking at me. I’ve got the whole kit and caboodle.”  
  
“And yet you use terms like ‘kit and caboodle’ in casual conversation.” The man took a contemplative sip of coffee from his cup.  
  
The silence only lasted for a moment before Caroline, after a look that seemed to take the measure of the man’s character, decided to level with him. “Okay, so I talk funny. I might be on the squad, but that’s more thanks to seven years of gymnastics than me having an in with the head cheerleader. And I’m still not the top of the pyramid, you get me?”  
  
She waited until the man had nodded before continuing. “There’s this girl on the squad. And she’s talented. I mean really talented. But with her academics, she’s never going to get in anywhere good. Not without a cheerleading scholarship. And she won’t get one of those unless the team gets more attention. Like if they win the championship this year.” She shrugged. “Plus, she’s really cool, you know? A longer season means I get to hang out with her more.”  
  
The man, frowning slightly, gave a considering nod. “So you want to help her, and get closer to her.”  
  
“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Caroline.  
  
“Then,” continued the man, consulting the page his notebook had opened to, “you must sabotage three parties.”  
  
“And then you’ll make sure our team wins the championship?”  
  
“No.” The man smiled gently. “You will.”

* * *

  
The door jingled as a black woman in business dress clacked her way confidently to the booth at the end of the diner.  She nodded in greeting to the man across the table as she slid in, removing her black leather purse from her shoulder.  
  
When a waitress approached, she requested, “Just a cup of coffee, thank you.” She smoothed down her skirt and turned to face the man with eyes that seemed green in the glow of the streetlights outside.  
  
He spoke. “Well?”  
  
“It worked,” she replied.  
  
 **Jessica**  
  
“You completed your task?” The man seemed partly surprised, partly impressed.  
  
“Not yet,” Jessica clarified. She straightened her sleeves, tugging gently on the cuffs of her blazer. “But I started. I laid down most of the groundwork last week, and I’ve been working my way through the firewalls. My boss thinks its a project I’m doing as a favor to HR. I’m not inclined to disabuse him of the notion.”  
  
“No, I should think not,” agreed the man with a bit of a grin. “So, have you started to see results?”  
  
This Jessica confirmed with a nod. She elaborated, “This week I pointed out a blatant flaw in my supervisor’s plan for negotiating that upcoming merger, which, honestly, I have no idea how an error that glaringly obvious made it past the first draft, and instead of shooting me down or dismissing my improvement out of hand, he paused. And, wonder of wonders, thought. And then the man proceeded to commend my foresight in this important matter.”  
  
She allowed a small smile to grace her lips. “I must admit, at first I couldn’t see how this was going to work out. But now...”  
  
The man had gotten out his leather-bound notebook and silvery pen about halfway through her speech, and had been scribbling down the details meticulously since. “But now?” he prompted.  
  
“I’m going to have those files hacked by the end of this week. And,” here Jessica seemed to grow a touch uncomfortable, “those personnel files are quite confidential.” Her eyes ceased darting around and settled on those of the man opposite her. “All the same, I’m going to read them.”  
  
“And then?” probed the man.  
  
“And then I will finally have the respect I have been working for the duration of my time at this firm. It seems eldritch powers will get you quite a bit farther than mere competence, and in a much shorter period of time,” Jessica concluded with no small amount of satisfaction. “I won’t be,” she exhaled, “held back by those incompetent men and their ridiculous prejudices any more. To be honest, I am quite looking forward to it.”  
  
“Glad to hear it,” replied the man. “Come back next week with the details, and our business will be concluded.”  
  
“Yes,” Jessica confirmed, with a touch less surety than usual. “Concluded.”


End file.
